Things I Learned in School

And this is the part that no one ever wants to talk about: the part where I am the girl who stutters and I know you have been her, too. Tortured by m’s and s’s that would go on for hours, as M-M-Matthew, who skipped a grade, pinned you with fifth grade eyes and said, “What is wrong with you? Just spit it out!” And even though the teacher made him stop, your cheeks still burned and so did your chest, and your eyes did, too – later on when you let the tears come out of their hiding places. Maybe you were the fat kid or the short kid or the Native American kindergartener whose speech was just different enough to make him the target of Brian, who sat at the Mickey Mouse table and was so mean. In the jingling silence of the high school study hall, maybe you were the one the note was about: the one with the garage sale jeans and the sneakers that used to be your brother’s, the one with the funny hair or the braces or the crooked teeth. Maybe you were the one with no friends, always sitting in the back, pretending to be busy, praying that your desk was enough camouflage, that the wall behind you matched your face. It is not easy being the nerd, the jock, the misfit, the brainiac, the scholarship winner, the kid behind the gas pump, the kid behind the wheel of the new car, the gay kid, the too-tall kid, the kid who leaves the room for speech. Why can’t we see ourselves in each other? We are there all the time, waving simple white flags.